Shafter Research Station
Shafter Research Station is an agricultural research station in Shafter in the San Joaquin Valley, within Kern County, California.
The station, which was established in 1922, was used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to research cotton. Initial research at the station focused on growing long-staple cotton, which was used to make airplane wings at the time.
By 1925, the researchers had determined that Acala cotton was the highest-quality variety of long-staple cotton; they then developed the "one variety" method of cotton production, in which every California cotton producer would grow Acala cotton. As a result of this research, the state of California enacted the California One Variety Cotton Act, which mandated that California cotton producers could grow only Acala cotton. The law spurred the growth of California's fledgling cotton industry, which now forms a major part of the state's agricultural economy. The success of the "one variety" policy caused the station to earn an international reputation for its research, and procedures developed at the station have been used in the Australian and Israeli cotton industries.
The Shafter Research Station was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 17, 1997.
